Microsoft has been granted a stay of a landmark injunction in a patent infringement case that would have required the software giant to stop selling its popular Word in its current form by next month. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Thursday granted Microsoft's motion for a stay, pending appeal, of an injunction issued in August by a federal judge that bars sales of Word that include a custom XML code found to infringe on patents held by i4i - the plaintiff.

This is hardly unexpected... or unreasonable. I don't remember the figure off the top of my head but I believe that Microsoft would have significant difficulty staying afloat if all their Office revenue dried up over night.

What I'm really curious about is what Microsoft is going to do to make this go away. I expect they will be buying the company as soon as all the legal hurdles are jumped through. What I don't understand is why they're appealing; couldn't they just pay the fine, buy the company, and move on, with a patent that's been held up in court now neatly tucked under their belt?